Mortal Fall

by Christine Carbo

  “But as you can see, I’m a happy man now.” He rapped his fingers on the table and fidgeted in his seat. “I live a simple life doing odds and ends.”

  I thought of Adam. “What kind of odds and ends?”

  He lifted the shoulder his scar ran toward. “Painting houses, fence repair, lots of stuff.” He smiled again. “I’ve repaired some steel-jawed traps for folks too.”

  “Hence the legal advice,” I said.

  “Yep. Just warning folks about what to be careful of and helpin’ ’em out when things get red tape-ish, that’s all. No harm in that, is there?”

  “No, no harm in that,” I agreed. “Did you know Wolfie, also known as Paul Sedgewick?”

  “Not personally. Just heard about him. The locals around here weren’t too enamored of him. Said he wanted to pave the future for further restrictions on land use—hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, ATV’ing and the likes—by getting the wolverine listed as an endangered species.”

  “You believe that?”

  He took another sip of his shake, smacked his lips, and wiped his mustache with a napkin. The smell of bacon permeated the café. “I don’t think he was pushing for restrictions anytime soon. I think he was gathering data, and if he could get the wolverine listed, he would’ve been thrilled. I’d seen that guy you’re talking about in the woods trying to track his critters, with his radio equipment and such. Seemed harmless to me and like he was a decent guy. Obviously loved his work, but I’m no dummy.

  “I know biology studies can have a huge impact on land protection, and I can see how that might not be in the best interest of some of the locals ’round here. Because believe it or not, they want jobs. It’s not just about hunting, fishing, and snowmobiling; that just gets the attention of more people. Logging, mining, natural gas extraction are harder subjects to talk about these days, but we all know how the grizzly bear has been used as a tool to shut down development along the spine of the Divide.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, studying him. His appearance was completely at odds with his intelligence. “Did you meet with Sedgewick at the Outlaw’s?”

  “No.”

  “Did Sedgewick want to meet?”

  “I have no idea, but maybe. Yeah, I heard he was asking around for me. Wanted to know where I hang out and stuff.”

  “Why would he be doing that?”

  Rowdy shrugged. “Maybe ’cause I know folks around here. Same reason you’re talking to me.”

  “Why did you meet with that group of trappers in Melissa’s place a few weeks ago?”

  “Ah, you’ve been doing your homework, but what may I ask does my social life have anything to do at all with your accidents in the park?”

  “That’s a good question,” I said, “and I’ll tell you: Guy like Wolfie turns up dead in a place that is highly unlikely that he’d turn up dead, and I find out that he’s been setting federally sanctioned wolverine traps up the South Fork and getting sabotaged in the process. So I’m hoping folks like yourself will level with me.”

  “And if folks like us don’t?” he said in singsong.

  “Well, then I start needing to use other legal tactics to get some information.”

  Rowdy smiled again. “That supposed to scare me?”

  “No, but like I said, I’d appreciate your cooperation. If you can’t manage that then I’ll have to go snooping around in other places, maybe other areas of your life and your buddies’ lives. Plus I have some connections around here. It’s not like I don’t get help from the local force, the county, the whole crew of game wardens to boot, and trust me, it’s not fun when the cops start to make a project of you and your personal life in a small town like this.”

  Rowdy quit smiling. “Sounds like you’re threatening me. If this is your way of getting me to cooperate, you’re not too wise.” He stared at me with a flat gaze as if to say he was done talking.

  It wasn’t my style to play tough guy, and I was probably going about it all wrong, but the adrenaline I’d felt earlier was still in me and this guy was effectively pushing my buttons. I could feel my fingers tingling and my face heat up. I had the urge to take brusque action even though I knew I was much more adept at getting information out of someone by means other than pissing them off.

  Basically, though, something about his attitude was getting to me. If it’s true that he’d been an attorney—and I’d find that out soon enough—his fall from professionalism struck some unpleasant chord with me. I don’t like waste or sloppiness. My thoroughness and tidiness had, to a large extent, been borne out of survival—to prevent my mom from going into a paranoid stint. (That blanket wasn’t unfolded on that chair two hours ago. My God, someone’s been in our house . . .) Making the best of things, and doing the things you do to the best of your ability has always been my standard. But this man before me exuded an I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude. I could see the intelligence in his dark eyes, deeply incongruous with his tattered, deteriorating, and cocky presence. “Do you know who’d been messing with Sedgewick’s traps?” I said calmly.

  “No, so just as well I didn’t meet with him.”

  “All right.” I stood up, still irritated, and dug out a five from my wallet and threw it on the table to more than cover my cup of coffee. Then I threw my card on the table. “You change your mind about helping me out, just give that number a call.”

  “Ain’t got a phone,” he said.

  I could tell the use of ain’t was forced. “For an attorney, I’d think you’d know better than to use ain’t. But I guess meth tends to mess with one’s language skills.” I walked away, past the blue vinyl booths and formica tables; by the curious eyes of the locals and tourists eating their late breakfasts and early lunches; by all the curios near the cash register—the key chains with hundreds of different names alphabetized, the T-shirts, hats, stuffed animals of fuzzy black bears and snow-white mountain goats with small, shiny black horns made of pleather; past the postcards of big horn sheep, grizzlies, elk; and almost to the glass-door exit when Rowdy called out, “Hey. Officer Harris. That right, Harris?”

  I looked over my shoulder, down the line of booths to see him wave me over. I walked back and stood by the table, figuring my mentioning of meth must have struck some chord.

  “Sit.” He waved his hand to the vinyl bench that I’d just been seated in.

  I sat back down and felt the seat was still warm.

  “The guys I met with,” he said. “They wanted to know what kind of trouble they could get in from messing with traps sanctioned by the US forest service.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “The truth. That it depends on the animal. If it’s federally protected, they’d be dealing with the feds breathing down their necks. And if the traps were sanctioned by the forest service, it was either funded by the state or funded by a grant from the federal government. As you know, the state would bring on a game warden to investigate and the feds, well, you know, they’ve got their own agents.”

  “So one of the guys must have had a run-in with Sedgewick if he was worried.”

  Rowdy stared at me and drummed his fingers again on the table, weighing whether to give me anything more. He bit the side of his lower lip, then said, “Couldn’t say on that one.”

  “I’ll need you to write down your proper name and the names of all the guys you met with in Melissa’s bar.” I slid my pen and a piece of paper I tore from my notepad his way and gave him my best level gaze to say I meant it.

  • • •

  I picked up a turkey sandwich on the way back to the office at a little sub shop closer to Glacier, unwrapped it at my desk, and before I took a bite, Lara called.

  “Hi, Monty,” she said. “Are you busy after work today?”

  “I’m pretty much busy around the clock at this point. What do you need?”

  “The old gas grill in the backyard—I need to move it to my car. I’m getting rid of it.”

  “Why?” I could hear the squawk of a crow outside
my window and the sound grated and sent a twinge down my spine. I could picture Lara in our backyard inspecting the grill—our first gas grill—that my father gave us for a wedding gift.

  “It’s rusty and it doesn’t light when I hit the switch. I always have to use a match. And with my family coming to town, it’d be nice to have something that works.”

  My irritation rose higher. We hadn’t even fully decided on a divorce and here she was getting rid of our shit. The crow continued to screech again from outside my window and Lara tried to make light of it. “You get a new pet?”

  I chuckled in spite of my irritation. “Look, Lara. I don’t want to sell that. It works perfectly fine.”

  “Then you come get it and you use it. And speaking of pets, it wouldn’t hurt for you to stop in and give Ellis a snuggle. He misses you.” Ellis was our cat, sleek and all black with cool, yellowish-green eyes. Lara had gotten him the first year we’d moved to the Flathead Valley.

  “Fine then. I will, but when I have time, and I just don’t happen to have time this week.” I said good-bye, irritated and angry for no good reason.

  I stood up and stretched, rubbed the back of my neck, sat back down at my desk, and got to work, pushing away lingering thoughts of Lara. I felt of two minds about the relationship. On the one hand, it already felt ruined by the wedge she’d placed between us by wanting the separation in the first place. On the other, I still felt connected to her. We had a decade of history. We spent time building a life, constructing what I thought was a stable relationship. For me, I wasn’t sure I could just throw it away because she was changing the game.

  I turned my focus back to Phillips, and scoured his financial history, realizing that he put very little on credit cards and used mostly cash. I found the Toyota registered in his name. He made decent money as a cartographer, had very few expenses, but didn’t have a lot in savings or investments, which sort of went with the idea that he liked to gamble as his ex, Beverly, had suggested.

  I took out my notepad and started to scribble furiously, mapping the many avenues I needed to explore, from searching for Rowdy’s real name (because in spite of asking him to write it down, he didn’t, and when I pressed him, he clammed up even further) to speaking to the Region One game warden who covers the canyon and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area to see if Wolfie reported the tampered traps, and much, much more. My list was ballooning.

  I called Ken into my office. My jaw felt tight. I was anxious and excited for all the ground we needed to cover. I made some coffee while I explained to Ken that I wanted him to check the health club in Whitefish for the last time Mark Phillips had worked out and to check the shuttle services for sightings of Phillips. I gave him a photocopied picture of the one I took from Phillips’s house of him and his son up by the boardwalk near the visitor center at the top of the pass. “You up for it?” I asked Ken.

  “Sure,” he said. He looked bright-eyed and energetic.

  “Okay, good. But, you’ll need to be really careful. Write everything down, okay?”

  Ken smiled, flicking his white shred of gum forward with his tongue, then back again. “I’ve got it, Harris. Really, I’ve got it. Other people can be thorough too.”

  I nodded. “Okay, okay. Go then, and let me know as soon as you get any information.”

  “Will do,” he said, saluting me lightheartedly and snapping his gum on the way out.

  I lowered myself into my chair in front of my computer. I could hear muffled voices from down the hall, the crow still intermittently cawing, and the sound of coffee dripping into the carafe. The heavy and sharp smell of the black liquid began to permeate the room.

  I know I can be a sucker, but basically I’m not the kind of guy who doesn’t help out when someone asks, especially Lara. I was feeling bad about being so childish with her, even though I knew better than to let my emotions go there. The grill really was on its last leg, and she had good reason to want a new one, especially with her family coming to town. I knew she was having the reunion on Saturday catered, but I was sure several of her siblings would be staying longer and would probably come to the house for dinner. I wondered what excuses she’d have for why I wouldn’t be there. Work, I figured.

  But just like with Ken, my quest for thoroughness sometimes extended to judiciousness and practicality, and I believed in using things to their last leg. I don’t like waste, and I saw no basis for buying something new if something old was still working. But, I reasoned, I could be overbearing.

  I picked up my phone and texted: I can swing by after work.

  23

  * * *

  I DROVE BACK TO Glacier Academy at three p.m., the time Penny told me that Nick Ferron would be in to start prepping for dinner. When I pulled up, a group of kids—all shapes and sizes and varying ages—were out in a clearing playing volleyball. An instructor wearing gym shorts and a whistle around her neck stood watching them and yelling praises: That’s it, Bodey. All right. Way to go, Spencer. Good get!

  I parked and went in and asked Penny where I could find the kitchen. She said Nick was expecting me and walked me out of her office, up some stairs to the upper level of the large lodge, and to the wing opposite the main office.

  In the kitchen, Nick Ferron had his head down and was cutting red and yellow peppers. He was wearing a white, well-worn chef’s apron and a purple bandanna around his head in a do-rag style. He looked up when Penny introduced me, his eyes curious to have a visitor. He wiped his hands on his apron and held one out to shake.

  I asked him if I could talk with him since he’d worked here the longest. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said. Penny left and he motioned to a small table in the corner, walked over to it, and removed some manila folders and stacked them on a shelf holding dozens of cookbooks off to the side. We both took a seat. “Would you like something to drink? Tea, coffee?”

  “Maybe a glass of water.”

  “Sure.” He grabbed a cup and filled it with tap water. “Ice?”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “Water’s good here. From a well—fresh and cold.”

  “Thank you.” I took the glass. “Look, Mr. Ferron, I know you’re busy, so I’ll try not to take too much of your time. Do you remember a man who used to work here named Mark Phillips?”

  He nodded. “Sure, I remember him. Only knew him for about a year. He was here sometime before I was hired.”

  “When were you hired?” I asked.

  He scratched the side of his face, screwing up his mouth to think. “I believe I started in ’95. Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “Yeah, 1995, because that was the year I finished cooking school down in Hamilton and then moved up here. I saw this position advertised and got it right away. I only planned on it for a year or two before moving onto something bigger, something high-end—you know—some fancy restaurant. But this paid fairly well and they were eager to keep me once they tasted my cooking, and I was in no hurry to go. I kind of enjoyed feeding the kids, you know, like I was doing something more meaningful than only cooking for people’s pleasures for a night out. Now, holy shit.” He chuckled. “Who would have thought I’d be here going on so many years now?”

  “That’s a long time, all right. You must enjoy it.”

  “I do.” He shrugged. “Has its ups and downs, but I run the whole shebang. Nobody tells me what to do, nobody’s breathing down my neck, and nobody’s pissed off at me for not pleasing some uptight customer in some hoity-toity restaurant. Sometimes I miss the high-end stuff, and with kids, you can’t get too sophisticated, but a few times a year, the parents come and I get to be really creative then. Plus, to this day, it feels like I’m contributing to the kids’ mental health through the physical sustenance of their bodies. These kids—they’re not growing up on crap fast food, not while I’m doing the cooking.” He placed his palm flat on his chest and smiled with pride.

  “And Phillips?” I asked. “He was here in ’96?”

  “Yeah, but only for like a year or so. I’m not positiv
e, but I think he left in ’96, the year after I got here.”

  I did the math in my head. Adam fell apart the year following the Nathan Faraway incident. Adam would have been at the academy five years before Nick Ferron arrived. I briefly pictured Adam pushing away his spaghetti, refusing to eat it, his cheeks puffed out with anger. But Phillips would have been here then because I remembered him. “So Phillips was here from at least ’90 until ’95?”

  “I suppose. I couldn’t tell ya when he started, but I know he left in ’96 because it was after the whole Miranda thing.”

  “Miranda?”

  “Yeah, you don’t know about that?”

  “No,” I said. “What happened with Miranda?”

  Ferron thoughtfully traced a finger along an irregularity in the wood. “Apparently not that many people really know about it. They did a good job of keeping it out of the papers and such since she was a minor. I don’t think the family wanted it to go public. Plus the lawsuit was filed against Global, which was headquartered in another state.”

  “What happened?”

  He bit his lip and studied me for a moment. I couldn’t tell if he was making me wait, setting up a little suspense for some self-satisfying reason, or if he was thinking it through—deciding exactly what to share with me. After so long, he must have felt a certain loyalty to the place, as if the school was family, and family secrets weren’t to be blabbed about in any carefree fashion. “Miranda hung herself,” he said at last. “In the bathroom stall about five months after I started here. Bless the poor girl.”